


Technicalities

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [43]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:03:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7443691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, A gift for the fertility gods."</p><p>Before trading with a new alien civilization can commence, someone has to make a donation to the fertility god.</p><p>Blink-and-you-miss-it crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Technicalities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aivix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aivix/gifts).



John listened to the Chieftain outline the prerequisites for treating with any new societies, mind spinning. Because this planet had an orbital gate, they’d never dealt with anyone not from their own planet, and apparently everyone on their planet was down with this practice. Teyla looked alarmed. Ronon looked amused. Stevens looked thoughtful.

Rodney said, “Is he kidding? Where the hell are we going to find a bona-fide virgin?”

“Maybe somewhere in the science department,” Ronon said.

“Oh ha ha, very funny, way to pander to high school stereotypes,” Rodney said. “I’ll have you know that I lost my virginity when I was sixteen, and those years of playing piano serve me very well in the bedroom.”

“TMI, Rodney,” John said, but he filed that away for later. He nodded at the Chieftain. “Let me get back to our...Chieftainess, and we’ll see what we can do to rustle up a gift for your...fertility gods.”

The Chieftain inclined his head, smiling. “Of course! Please, do what you must.” He seemed like a nice enough guy, was excited to learn about and trade with a new,  more technologically-advanced people. He also seemed to have no clue that he’d crossed the line of a pretty heavy social taboo, and also a professional one. There was _no way_ John could go around asking which, if any, of the Expedition’s Members were still virgins.

Stereotypes aside, it was impossible that any of them still were, given their ages.

Not so, according to Heightmeyer.

John was sitting in Elizabeth’s office with Heightmeyer and Rodney, explaining what the Chieftain wanted.

“Some people are asexual or demisexual,” Heightmeyer offered. “So they may be technical virgins.”

“Did you talk to the Chieftain and find out exactly what it means to be a virgin?” Elizabeth asked.

“No,” John said. “I wasn’t about to -”

“I’ll get someone from anthro on it,” Elizabeth said.

For once, Rodney kept comments about the soft sciences to himself while Elizabeth radioed out to Dr. Raberba, a tiny blond Circassian man who spoke a dozen languages, played the violin, and could take on a marine twice his size. He was the chief anthropologist and, for all his genteel, tea-drinking ways, was unsurprised by pretty much everything the expedition encountered off-world.

“Elizabeth has a point,” Heightmeyer said. “Someone may qualify as a virgin under their social mores even if they don’t under ours. Of course, the underlying issue is whether or not it’s ethical to ask one of the expedition members to make this kind of sacrifice.”

“Hey,” Rodney protested. “I got married to Ronon one time so we could get a look at a ZPM. Sacrifices are necessary, especially for ZPMs.”

“This isn’t the same as undergoing a marriage ritual.” Heightmeyer looked disapproving.

There was a knock on the door frame.

“Qatra,” Elizabeth began, but it wasn’t Dr. Raberba.

It was Lieutenant Stevens, who’d been on the planet with them, on loan from AR-3 to keep him busy while half of his team was on Earth on leave.

“Ma’am,” he said. “I - might have a solution to your problem.”

John raised his eyebrows. Was Stevens saying _he_ was…?

“Lieutenant,” Elizabeth said, her expression politely neutral, “please come in. And close the door behind you.”

The door swished shut, and Stevens fell into parade rest. “Ma’am, I know of someone who might be able to fill the requirements of the Chieftain on PX9-424.”

“Not you?” Elizabeth asked.

Steven’s smirked for half a second. “No, ma’am.”

Heightmeyer cleared her throat. “Then shouldn’t this other person be here talking to us?”

“No one outside of AR-1 and myself is aware of what’s needed to complete the mission objective,” Stevens said.

“Who did you have in mind, Lieutenant?” Elizabeth asked.

“Major Lorne, ma’am.”

John blinked.

Rodney said, “Wasn’t he raised on a hippie commune? I thought - free love and all that.”

“He mentioned it at Team Night,” Stevens said. “I told the other guys not to give him a hard time about it. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, I guess? And they both complained about how the sexual revolution was twisted by a lot of men to take advantage of girls, but the underlying principal of the sexual revolution was to allow more freedom of choice. For everyone, men and women alike. And the choice _not_ to was still a choice. And it was what he chose.”

“Ever?” Rodney asked.

“He wasn’t very clear about it. I didn’t want to pry. He seemed pretty comfortable with his choice, but it’s not the kind of thing most guys would share with, you know, Marines.” Since Stevens was a Marine, he looked a little chagrined.

“I hardly think Major Lorne’s first genuine sexual experience should be something for a mission,” Heightmeyer said. “It should be - affectionate. Loving. With a trusted partner.”

John was seriously weirded out by the fact that they were talking about Lorne’s sex life - or lack thereof.

“If we can avoid putting Major Lorne in a terribly compromising position, I’d prefer that,” Elizabeth said. “Stevens, take a couple of Marines and escort Dr. Raberba to the planet. I’ll brief Dr. Raberba and send him to meet you in the gate room.”

John said, “I’d like to go along. Get some more details from the chief myself, see if I can’t negotiate something else.”

“Tread lightly, John.” Elizabeth’s expression told him he couldn’t screw this up by being flippant.

“Yes, ma’am.”

John and Stevens stepped out of Elizabeth’s office and almost mowed down poor Dr. Raberba, whose fluffy blond hair was sticking up all over the place and who had tea spilled down the front of his shirt. He looked exhausted.

John accompanied Stevens to the ready room, where the quartermaster issued them tac vests and P-90s. Coughlin and Reed were on Earth for leave, so Walker and Mehra (from AR-7, half of her team was on leave as well), came to join them to get suited up for a gate mission. John explained it was a quick trip, recon and a chat with the natives, then back as soon as possible to report to Elizabeth.

“Colonel?”

John spun around, startled to see Lorne. And it was so strange, knowing what he now knew about the man, because Lorne looked like he always did, hair and uniform neat, armed with his ubiquitous datapad and a stylus, which meant he wanted John to sign paperwork.

“Major.”

Lorne held out the datapad and stylus. “Requisition forms for the next supply run from the Daedalus.”

“Right.” John accepted the datapad and began scrawling his name on the screen. Once upon a time his signature had been legible, but after three years of signing forms, it was basically J-squiggle S-squiggle.

“Thanks.” Lorne smiled and accepted he datapad back. “Walker, Stevens, don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

“Never, sir,” Stevens said, with a faint trace of amusement, and Lorne chuckled.

“Be good to my boys, Mehra,” he said.

She arched an eyebrow. “If I were bad, you’d never find the bodies.”

Lorne laughed, bright and open, and how had John never noticed he was that good-looking? He had dimples.

“I like you, Mehra. See you, Colonel.” Lorne waved and walked away.

John glanced at Walker and Stevens, but neither of them were showing any hint of amusement at what they knew about their team leader. John wondered how long they’d known.

Dr. Raberba, wearing black BDUs, came skittering down to the gate room. He accepted his tac gear with aplomb - vest, sidearm, no P-90, holster for his PDA - and Chuck dialed the gate.

Back on the planet, the Chieftain was glad to see them, was pleased to answer any questions Dr. Raberba might have. John sent Stevens with Raberba to keep an eye on him, had Mehra do a sweep of the immediate vicinity while he and Walker held the gate.

When Raberba returned with Stevens in tow, both their expressions were carefully blank.

“What’s the verdict?” Elizabeth asked, once they were back in her office. Mehra and Walker had been dismissed, but Stevens came along for the debrief.

“I questioned the Chieftain very extensively about various sexual acts, what did and did not constitute sex for them,” Raberba said. “Apparently the denizens of his planet are not as creative as ours, and he would be interested in learning more about our sexual practices, but even after considering the ones he wasn’t familiar with, it sounds like their definition of technical virginity is the same as ours. Any contact with another person, for the sake of sexual gratification, regardless of penetration, renders a person non-virginal on their planet. Best as I can tell, the gift to the fertility gods symbolizes a coming-of-age ritual on the planet, that denizens reaching sexual maturity will dedicate their offspring to the service of the gods.” Raberba cleared his throat. “I don’t think the Chieftain understands that we have no children or teenagers. He thinks we’re a civilian population, not a deliberately-chosen adult population of explorers.” He ducked his head. “But I took some readings while we were in the hall of the gods, where the Chieftain keeps his office. And the ZPM in front of the Fertility God? It’s fully charged.”

Rodney’s eyes lit.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Elizabeth said.

Raberba bobbed his head in acknowledgment and slipped out of the room.

“Well?” Elizabeth asked.

“Radio for Lorne,” Rodney said.

Heightmeyer sighed. “It’s not that simple.”

“It’s a fully charged ZPM!”

“I can’t ask one of my men to do something I wouldn’t be willing to do,” John said.

Rodney wheeled on him. “You wouldn’t be willing to -”

John didn’t know what kind of world Rodney had grown up in, but John had guarded his virginity pretty closely till he was in college, constantly bombarded by warnings from his father about succession and inheritance and propriety.

“Maybe we should just ask Lorne,” Stevens said. “I could talk to him.”

Heightmeyer disapproved with a single quirk of her eyebrow.

“Look, he’s not squeamish about sex. He leads a team of Marines. He’s been in the service for a long time. And he grew up on a hippie commune. Just because he hasn’t done it himself doesn’t mean it freaks him out. I’ve never gone bungee jumping. I can talk about it.”

“Bungee jumping and sex aren’t the same thing.” Heightmeyer pressed her lips into a thin line.

But Elizabeth said, “Do it.”

When Lorne arrived, he smiled at them, solicitous and helpful as ever, but when Elizabeth herded everyone else but Stevens out of the office, his expression turned to one of concern, though he didn’t protest.

Rodney, John, Elizabeth, and Heightmeyer stood outside the office for what felt like forever but was only a few minutes.

Then the door opened and Stevens beckoned them in.

Lorne’s expression was wary, but he met John’s gaze as confidently as before.

“What does this...gift to the fertility gods even entail?”

John, deeply uncomfortable, made a crude gesture with one hand that he had never imagined having to do in the presence of a woman, let alone one who was his boss.

“Oh. That’s it? No partner involved?” Lorne sounded surprisingly un-squeamish about it.

“No,” John said. Raberba had been pretty clear on that.

“Any audience?”

“Just a...supportive friend.” Said supportive friend was supposed to be the person the gifter then lost his or her virginity to. John cleared his throat. “For the sake of protocol, I recommend it be someone not in your chain of command.” Which basically ruled out every soldier on base, including him.

“Perhaps Teyla or Ronon,” Elizabeth said. “They’re removed from the chain of command, but basically on par with you as far as authority.”

Heightmeyer cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should find out who Major Lorne would be most comfortable with. Do you need a few minutes, Major?”

Lorne frowned thoughtfully. “Well, male Marines are known to have the occasional circle-jerk, so it wouldn’t be too weird for one of them on that score, but none of them know about me. Except my team, and that would be - too weird.” Belatedly, he realized he’d said _circle-jerk_ in front of his boss, the base psych, and Teyla, who while badass, was considered a lady on par with a queen by a good number of the men, and he blushed brightly.

Heightmeyer said, “Everyone else step out, please. Evan and I will discuss this privately.”

John was startled by her casual use of Lorne’s first name, but everyone, including Stevens, shuffled out of Elizabeth’s office once more.

Finally, Heightmeyer emerged. “Return to your duties. Major Lorne has made his decision. He and his second will be dialing out in half an hour.”

“Who is it?” Rodney asked, and snapped his mouth shut abruptly.

“This way we will keep it as discreet as possible,” Heightmeyer said, and Elizabeth nodded.

“Return to your duties,” Elizabeth said, and John headed to the command office to write his mission report.

As he sat in front of his laptop, hands hovering over the keyboard, he wondered how to explain this mission in terms that didn’t involve ‘virgin’ or ‘fertility gods’. He was about to radio for Dr. Raberba, who had a gift with words, when Heightmeyer’s voice came over his radio.

“Colonel Sheppard?”

“Yes, Dr. Heightmeyer?” His heart started pounding in his ears.

“Please report to the gate room immediately.”

“Yes, ma’am.” John stood up slowly. The connection cut, and he forced himself to take a deep breath.

He arrived at the ready room, signed tac gear out for the third time that day, and joined Lorne in front of the gate.

“Thank you, sir,” Lorne said quietly.

John wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was, so he nodded once, attempting to look commanding and authoritative, and Chuck fired up the gate.

On the other side of the gate, the Chieftain greeted them warmly, but his expression dimmed when John introduced Lorne.

“Is this true?” The Chieftain’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “You have never…?”

“Not with another person,” Lorne said easily.

“Is it a warrior’s vow of celibacy?” the Chieftain asked. “I know some take that path, believing it strengthens them.”

“Something like that.” Lorne glanced at Sheppard. “So, what do I need to do?”

It was simple, really. He had to strip, kneel in front of the statue of the fertility god (which didn’t look like a person at all, just a giant flower with a ZPM planted in front of it), and...make a donation.

The Chieftain brought cushions and a blanket so Lorne would be comfortable, and then he ducked out of the little shrine to give them privacy.

John hovered near the door anxiously, unsure of what to do or where to stand or look or - 

The sound of Lorne unclipping his P-90 from his vest was like a shotgun blast in the silence.

“It’s all right, sir,” Lorne said. “You don’t have to watch. Just - verify I didn’t cheat or anything.”

John swallowed hard. “Right.” And, very deliberately, he turned his back. But he could hear every shuffle and shift, every rustle of fabric. He could imagine Lorne unbuckling his tac vest and setting it aside carefully, unlacing his boots and placing them side-by-side at the edge of the blanket. He was probably the kind of guy who put one sock in each boot so he would remember which sock had been on which foot. And then he’d unbutton his uniform shirt, peel off his undershirt, unfasten his pants - button flies, for stealth purposes - and slide them down his legs. He probably folded everything into a neat pile, one foot square so it could pass inspection, and then -

“Major?”

“Sir?”

“Why me?”

“You’re attractive, sir. I'm unlikely to have performance anxiety with...appropriate inspiration.”

John spun around, startled, and his voice caught in his throat. Lorne was kneeling on the blanket, fully nude, pale golden skin gleaming in the torchlight of the stuffy little stone room. He had one hand between his thighs and the other toying with one of his nipples. A warm pink flush was spreading down his torso.

“And I trust you, sir, not to treat me any differently, knowing what you know,” Lorne said. His gaze was hooded, his lips parted as he moaned breathily.

“Your team wouldn’t have,” John said stupidly, but his heart was thudding in his chest once more. “Stevens seems like an okay guy.”

“My team has all good men,” Lorne said, and he twisted his wrists, and his eyes fell closed for a second. “But I feel responsible for them in a way I don’t with you. And I’ve seen the way you look at McKay.”

It was like someone had thrown a glass of ice water in John’s face. He swallowed hard. “If you can still speak in full sentences,” he said, “you’re doing it wrong. We don’t have all day.”

“Sorry, sir.” Lorne’s chest heaved, and John could see the dark head of his engorged cock as he pumped his fist between his thighs.

“Stop calling me sir.”

“Sorry.” Lorne bowed his head, panting, shifted his hand so he could play with his other nipple.

“Don’t apologize. I just -” John realized he was staring, staring at the way Lorne’s hips were rocking forward into his fist, the way his chest was heaving, and he spun away. “Just do what you have to.”

He fixed his gaze on the far wall and started to count up the Fibonacci sequence in his head, but he could hear the slick sound of flesh on flesh, Lorne’s breathy moans and panting, and then Lorne’s moans turned to cries, louder and sharper and arrhythmic, and Lorne went, abruptly, silent.

John spun back around, weapon at the ready. Was Lorne dead? Was the statue some kind of trap?

But Lorne was sprawled back on the blanket and pillows, panting, dazed. John watched, hypnotized, as Lorne dragged his fingers through the pearlescent slick on his belly and chest, heaved himself up with his other hand, and knelt in front of the statue, smearing it into the bowl at the base of the statue.

The statue flared on, bright blue.

“What does that mean?” John asked.

“Um...donation accepted?” Lorne’s chest glistened with sweat, and he was still breathing hard. He reached for his tac vest - it was on the floor beside his neatly folded clothes, as John had predicted. Lorne fumbled in one of the pockets and came up with a packet of tissues, which he used to clean himself off. He stuffed the dirty tissues into a ziploc bag and then was back into his clothes with breathtaking speed.

“You can let the Chieftain know it’s done,” Lorne said quietly.

John poked his head past the curtain door and beckoned to the Chieftain, who lit up.

When he stepped into the shrine and saw that the flower statue was glowing blue, he was very pleased.

“This is most excellent.” He looked Lorne up and down. “You have the gift of the gods, yes?”

“I don’t know what that is,” Lorne said. He buckled on his tac vest, scooped up his P-90.

The Chieftain reached behind the statue and drew out what looked like an Ancient sensor. It was the first sign of advanced tech anyone had seen on the planet.

“You can make it light, yes?”

“Oh. Maybe. If it still has power. What is it?”

“It tells us if our children will be healthy,” the Chieftain said, “but it has been a long time since anyone with the gift of the gods was born among our people.”

Lorne glanced at John. “Sir?”

John said, “We’ll come back with Dr. McKay, and he’ll see what he can do about getting that thing to work again, all right?”

The Chieftain beamed. “That would be most excellent. Your people are welcome any time.”

John smiled tightly. “Thanks. We’ll let our chieftainess know. Lorne, let’s go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Back on Atlantis, Lorne reported straight to medical for a check-up, Elizabeth walking with him for a quick debrief. John turned in his tac gear and reached for his radio to summon Dr. Raberba. He was just out of his tac vest when Rodney ran into him. Literally.

“Did you hear? Lorne’s back! We can have access to the ZPM - and some other Ancient tech they have there. Elizabeth said it’s some kind of health scanner -” Rodney cut himself off, watched John hand over his P-90 and sign the quartermaster’s datapad to confirm it had been returned. “Did you go off-world?”

“Not now, Rodney.”

“Did you go with _Lorne?_ ”

“Not now,” John hissed. “I have to -”

The way Rodney’s gaze dipped downward along John’s body was humiliating. “Need to go take care of something?”

“Dammit, Rodney.” John dragged him away from the ready room and into an alcove beneath the stairs. “Now is not the time, all right? What happened was very awkward for the both of us. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make it worse. Especially for him.”

Anger sparked in Rodney’s gaze. “You say you never see it coming, but with Lorne, you did, didn’t you? Literally.”

John swallowed hard. “He’s not you, all right? I was just a pretty face for him, like a dirty magazine.” Lorne was a pretty face too, but - “I can’t deal with this right now.” He turned away and headed up the stairs. He locked himself in the military command office for the rest of the day, told Atlantis to only let in Ronon, Teyla, Elizabeth, or Beckett.

He emailed Raberba for suggestions about how to write his report, and if he spent an unprofessional amount of time playing solitaire on his laptop, he didn’t care, because for all that Lorne was the technical virgin, John felt like the shy one, the repressed one. If Lorne could see how John felt about Rodney, who else could see? Obviously not Rodney.

John supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when Rodney managed to break into his office anyway.

“I cannot believe you,” Rodney snapped.

The door hissed shut behind him.

“You can’t tell me something like - like _that_ and then hide for the rest of the day.” Rodney planted himself in front of John’s desk and reached out, closed John’s laptop so fast he barely had time to yank his hands out of the way.

“I needed some time to process. It’s a Heightmeyer-approved post-mission activity,” John said.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Do not quote the soft sciences at me. Here’s the thing - there was no way that stupid chieftain would have known if one of us was lying to him about being a virgin. We could have picked anyone to do the stupid thing, even picked a dating pair so it wasn’t weird.”

“There was a sensor at the end -”

“That detected the ATA gene, not virgin status. There’s nothing about being a virgin that can be tracked physiologically, because technical virginity varies from culture to culture,” Rodney said. “Any one of us could have done that. Could have been you and me.”

John raised his eyebrows. “What?”

Rodney reached for his belt. “We could have done it. I’d have watched you, been fine with you watching me.”

John wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing. “Rodney?”

“I was waiting for you to come to your senses and abandon your military’s sense of repression, the same way you abandon all their other useless rules.” Rodney dropped his belt to the floor and circled the desk, and then he was straddling John’s thighs and Rodney was peeling off his own shirt, and John’s heart was thumping again. “Too bad it took Lorne to get you to be honest. But I appreciate the groundwork being laid.”

“Rodney?”

“That is my name,” Rodney murmured, leaning in slowly. Giving John time to push him away. John didn’t. “Feel free to wear it out. You can make this room soundproof, right?”

John nodded.

Rodney undid the button fly on his pants and said, “Let me show you how I’d have done it.”

And John said, “Yes, sir.”


End file.
